Awakening, Part One: Darkness
by buongiornodaisy
Summary: Ben embarks on a dangerous mission to find Annie after she goes missing, learning more about his capabilities along the way. Lost/Persona crossover.


**Awakening, Part One: Darkness**

Author's Notes: thanks to calluna and khaman for looking this over for me.

* * *

I recall that my fourteenth birthday was shaping up to be exceptionally bad. Not that my birthday had ever been good, being the anniversary of my mother's death, but at least I had Annie, my only friend, the only person in the godforsaken DHARMA Initiative who celebrated my birthday with me. I had never looked forward to my birthday before. She changed that. The day was still hard, yes. I had to deal with my father, who used the day as an excuse to blame me for his problems. Annie made it bearable, and reliably so. So of course I assumed she would be there for my fourteenth birthday. Where else would she be?

Not there, as it turned out. Not anywhere known by the end of December's first week. She and a handful of other people were gone. Nobody knew how, nobody knew why. Everyone had their theories. The consensus? The Hostiles. Who else could they blame? Who else was on the island besides those loathed, violent natives? There was no evidence that the Hostiles wanted to kidnap our people. We had a truce, a very fragile truce, always on the verge of being called off for one reason or the other. Yet, in that climate of fear, it was too easy to blame the Hostiles. They had nobody else to blame.

I, too, was concerned—_very _concerned—about the whereabouts of our missing, more than anyone else I knew. Unfair assessment, I knew: Annie wasn't the only child who was kidnapped, nor were all the missing adults childless, but my concern was so encompassing as to make me selfish. All the other children had more than one friend, more than one parent, and both parents loved them. I only had Annie, and she was gone. I wanted to find her as much as anyone else, if not more. The difference was, I didn't blame the Hostiles. If I had to blame anyone, I blamed DHARMA. They were certainly secretive enough to be suspicious.

But what would DHARMA want to do with Annie and the others? All their experiments were voluntary. They didn't snatch people in the middle of the night. No, they recruited people—and if Annie was recruited for anything she would tell me, wouldn't she? I was no longer certain, but all I had to go on was a bad feeling. I grew agitated, asked too many questions. Nobody knew the answer, besides to blame the Hostiles. One, so irritated with me, pointed to his gun, told me if I was so desperate I should run off to the jungle and find her. I had a reputation for running away, even if I had done it only once. I didn't think that was such a bad idea. In fact, if I could find a way to steal someone's gun...

(Think, a scrawny boy like me, running off into the jungle with a rifle almost as big as my body! It wasn't such an amusing thought then, but to think of it now...)

So I planned. I planned, made lists and kept them hidden. Not even my father knew what I was doing, not that that was much of an accomplishment, considering he was very often drunk. But I had become so good at being secret that I could plan in plain sight. In fact, the day before my fourteenth birthday—the day before I was to leave—I was sitting on a bench going over my list one last time, so engrossed that a touch on the shoulder made me jump terribly. I turned around, seeing a tall, blond man I had never seen before. Was he a new recruit, or perhaps a Hostile? A Hostile who had come for me?

"What are you doing, there?" he asked me.

I closed my mouth—it had been wide open—swallowed, and replied, "N-nothing, sir." I hastily shoved the list in my pocket, not caring that it crumpled.

The man smiled, broad and charming, and laughed. "Hey, no need to get nervous. I didn't see you do anything bad, did I?"

I shook my head, a bit too fast.

The man laughed again. "I believe you." He gave me a rather strange look, an appraising one, now that I look back upon it; then he nodded. "You have a good day, kid," he said, and walked away. I wanted to call out to him, ask him who he was, but he was long gone before that happened.

I walked home immediately after the encounter, frightened the man might tell someone about the list. It was around dinner time. My father wasn't home when I walked through the door. I wasn't hungry. I went immediately to my room and paced, trying to talk myself out of a panic. That took a few minutes, after which I sat down on the foot of my bed and reached into my pocket.

For something that wasn't there.

"What the hell is this?"

I scrambled to my feet, turning towards the doorway now occupied by my father. Held in his hand: one crumpled piece of paper, undoubtedly containing a list in my own handwriting. I blinked at him, saying nothing.

"Are you running away again?"

I shook my head. These days I can talk myself out of anything, but back then my father and his rages were enough to render me silent, fearful. He stepped closer, I jerked back, my body rigid, tense. I felt odd, a bit sick. Anxiety? I couldn't quite tell.

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"

"N-no, sir."

"Then tell me!"

I couldn't. I couldn't tell the truth; I couldn't lie. That odd sensation intensified all the while, making me feel at once dizzy and as if something was waiting to leap out of me. I supposed it was my heart, or perhaps my consciousness, wishing not to be there for what inevitably would come next. My father, meanwhile, bolted forward, grabbing me by the shoulder of my t-shirt, shaking me.

"You want to run away again? After all I've done for you?"

"No!"

"Stop lying to me!" He let my shirt go, but just as soon hit me across the face. I didn't move my face back to look at him. I was too stunned. It wasn't that his blows hurt. They always did, except for now. Now, I felt nothing. I knew the blow had been hard. It had been forceful. I still felt nothing. "Tell me or I'll hit you again!"

I turned my face towards him, knowing I looked terrified. Of him? Yes. Of what I was feeling, too—or rather, what I was _not _feeling. "I'm not running away, I swear."

"Then what the hell is this list? Food, clothes... if this ain't a list to run away with, then what the hell is it?"

"It's not mine."

He hit me again, more forcefully this time, and, yet, I still felt nothing. That _something _wanting to come out pushed inside of me even stronger, and I felt as if it were telling me not to be afraid of him. Like hell I wouldn't. The blows kept coming, stronger and stronger and faster, and yet I felt nothing, nothing but that welling of power within me and the voice telling me not to be afraid...

"Please stop."

"What's that?"

"Please stop." It was me, pleading uselessly. "_Please_, or I'll...it'll..."

"What the hell are you talking about, huh?"

I couldn't answer him. I didn't know what I was talking about, exactly, only that the power, the voice, had become an entity, an entity whose intentions were becoming clearer to me by the second. If my father didn't stop hitting me, something terrible would happen.

I shook my head. An insufficient answer. He shook me, and I tensed up again, feeling frightened, knowing that power, that force, that _being _within me would release itself at any moment. "Tell me!" he said again, and I saw him raise his fist to me, and just then I felt a _jolt,_ as if something had come out of me—and indeed something had, for I was surrounded by blue light and suddenly a being, _the _being that had been welling up inside me was now before me, sending my dad back, frightened, as it lurched at him. Then something else happened in front of him: a dark purple wall surrounding the front of him, and a sound like a dull bell, and then...

I was transfixed on the spot for a while, not comprehending what I had just seen. It must've been several moments later when I started to mechanically collect the items I had placed on my list. Upon reaching the front door I ran out, through the barracks and out towards the sonar fences, trying hard to forget that I had just seen my father vanish into thin air.

My twenty-fourth hour of being awake passed without ceremony. I was deep into the jungle by then, searching thoroughly every strip of land that could conceivably conceal some sort of hatch, some sort of unknown station where they kept the kidnapped persons. Exhaustion did not hit until several hours later. Even then, leaning against a tree to catch my breath, I was reluctant to sleep. I told myself this was so because I was determined to find Annie. Really, I was afraid I would dream about what happened to my father. That fear did not come to fruition. I only knew I had fallen asleep when I was woken by the sound of disturbed vegetation, and the clicking of a gun.

"Benjamin Linus?"

The voice was familiar. I looked up and noticed the man was, too, though his hair was shorter, his skin cleaner, his clothes newer. His name was Richard Alpert. He was a Hostile. I had met him four years ago during my first attempt to run away. He hadn't harmed me then. He talked to me, even told me that if I were patient I might be able to join them some day. I suppose I forgot to mention that might've played into my reluctance to blame the Hostiles.

"What are you doing here?" Alpert asked me, lowering his gun and replacing the safety.

"I--" the words froze in my throat. He was an ally. I knew he was. Still, I was afraid that my time had not yet come, and that Alpert would escort me back to the living quarters. He had a gun. I did not. I could not possibly fight him. Not physically. On the other hand...no. I did not want to use that, not on him or on anyone.

"You know they're looking for you," he said.

"I can't go back," I blurted out. "My father, he--"

"What happened?"

"...I think I killed him."

Alpert stared at me, stunned. "You what?"

"I don't know what happened. There was...there was this blue light and...something came out...some kind of animal and..."

The look on Alpert's face was familiar. It was the same look he had given me four years ago, when I told him why I was in the jungle. I had seen my mother the day before, standing on the other side of the sonar fences that bordered the DHARMA barracks. He looked at me this way, astonished and appraising, as if he had been waiting for a prophecy to be fulfilled and hadn't expected me to factor in it. "A persona," he muttered.

"A what?"

"A persona," he said a bit louder. "DHARMA rounded up a few members who could use them a few weeks ago."

I sat up, my heart beginning to race. "So it's true? They really are the ones responsible for the kidnapping?"

"Yes." A realization came over Alpert's face. "Is that why you're out here? Did they take someone you knew?"

I nodded. "My friend Annie. Do you know where they've taken them?"

"Yes, but..."

"...you want me to go back to the barracks."

"No. It's just, your friend and everyone else they took are not on this island."

"What?"

"There's a building on the other island. That's where they're keeping the people."

"Can you take me to them?"

I could not quite understand his subsequent look—reluctance, as if he did not want to take me along but had to because he was following orders. From who? He replied, "Yeah. I can take you to them. But we're going to have to go to my camp first. We leave at night."

Charles Widmore did not strike me as a loathsome person when I first met him. Unsurprising: the qualities I would come to loathe about him could not be made evident during our brief introduction and hasty separation. He was there when Richard and I reached the Hostiles' camp, wondering who I was and why Richard had brought me. He was there when Richard and I left, briefly after Richard had awoken me from a deep sleep. He was cordial enough, if not wary and distant. At that time he was leading the Hostiles with a woman named Eloise Hawking, who saw us off as we pushed our boat out onto the ocean and made way to the other island. What Eloise and Charles both had in common, besides their leadership, was a strong curiosity about me and my presence in their camp. Richard said very little about them as we rowed towards the other island. He said very little in general, opting to focus on pushing forward. He did say one thing: that the Hydra island, and even the main island, were more dangerous than I knew.

We arrived on the other island two hours later, my arms sore and tired from all the rowing. Richard looked unperturbed. He began walking into the jungle silently, and I followed. A few moments later he finally spoke without facing me: "So tell me more about your persona."

I stopped, briefly. I did not want to think about it.

"I know it might be tough for you to remember, but I need to know. It's important. What did it look like?"

"Like...some kind of animal."

"What kind of animal?"

"I don't know...an aardvark? Or a dog?"

Richard chuckled. "You know, those two are nothing alike?" He paused. "How familiar are you with Egyptian mythology?"

"Not very. Why?"

"Nevermind. How did, um, your father..."

"I don't know. The thing, it just...came out and then some sort of purple, smoky wall showed up in front of him and he just...vanished."

I didn't get a good look at Richard's expression due to the light. Something told me it wasn't good. He looked ahead, saying, "I'm asking you these questions because I need to know what your persona is capable of."

As if killing my father wasn't clue enough. "What _is _a persona?" I asked.

"It's a sort of protector that comes from within you. I have one. It's only good for support. I could tell you exactly what your persona could do if you used it, but I can't right now."

"Oh." That didn't clear up the matter one bit. It didn't explain where a persona came from, why I had one, why it killed my father...I remained silent, trailing behind Alpert as he made his way through the jungle. I had been to this island several times during school trips to observe the animals in the Hydra. I never imagined the facility would be used to store humans. Was Annie being kept in a cage so visitors could observe her as if she were some sort of freak? The thought chilled me, and the sudden sound of whispers didn't help. I froze on the spot. Richard did, as well.

They were not a new phenomenon to me, these enveloping whispers that crept up like the wind, speaking things insensible to the conscious mind. I had heard them before on the night of my twelfth birthday. They had not made much sense to me then, and did not make much sense to me now. Richard, on the other hand, looked as if he knew too well what the whispers meant. They were bad, quite clearly bad. His posture rigid, he held out his hand as if to stop me, although I had done so already. "What...what are they?" I asked.

"Shadows," he replied. He reached for the gun he had placed in his waistband and handed it to me, removing the safety. "You're going to need this." Before he could explain why, a wave of blue light surrounded him, and a spirit in the form of a falcon emerged from him. A persona.

"You have one, too?"

"_Do you know how to fire a gun_?"

I jumped. Richard had not moved his lips, but I could hear his voice clearly in my head.

"_Don't worry. I'll tell you how to use one in battle. But we need to move, quick. They're coming._" Indeed, the whispers were growing louder, more sinister. Richard began to move forward, and I followed, holding the gun uncertainly in my hand.

"How can you...?"

"_Please be quiet. They'll hear us._"

I followed him silently. The warning seemed rather moot, however. The whispers were still growing stronger. Suddenly, Richard stopped and turned on his heel, staring at something behind me. I turned around to see what he was looking at—and cried out, for there was a monstrous thing behind me, shapeless, with long, thin arms and sharp finger nails stretching out from it.

"_Use the gun!_" I heard Richard's voice crying out in my mind. Clumsily, I rose the gun and aimed it towards the advancing figure, my hands trembling. "_Pull the trigger!_" One shot. Fired to the ground. One more. Hit a tree. Yet another. Hit the target. It reeled backwards, just a little, not enough. It started to advance. "_Your persona. Use it!_"

"How?"

"_Call out to it. It will answer to you._"

Was it really so simple as calling for it? It hadn't been called when it killed my father. Still, I was frightened, and shooting it wasn't working. I closed my eyes, focused within me to that being that had promised to protect me. It was there, waiting to be summoned. How to do it? My heart knew, and my heart led me to whisper, "_Persona_."

I opened my eyes, then, to see the same strange animal that had come out of me before come out of me now and lurch at the shadow, sending it back. I felt a sudden strong gust of wind, saw a bright green light—the shadow was gone. So, too, was my persona, and Richard's.

"Wind and darkness," he muttered. "Other things, too, but you can't use them _against _anyone."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your abilities. Your persona can use wind and darkness. Darkness is what..." He shook his head. "But you just used wind against the shadow. Come on, we're almost to the place."

Friendliness was not a common quality for DHARMA stations, but something about this one was particularly sinister. It was merely a large, box-shaped building, not unlike a warehouse, guarded poorly by a sleeping guard. Richard, knowing another way in, directed me around the back. It struck me as odd, how easy we could sneak in, when as far as I knew no one had escaped. I understood better once we were inside.

The exterior of the building was hardly sinister enough to match the inside. All one could accurately guess about the interior from the exterior was that it was likewise similar to a warehouse. What made it sinister was the sounds, the light: the buzzing, the banging, the whining, whimpering, flickering. "Where is she?" I whispered, not knowing whether I asked if she was in a room or in hell. Richard disregarded me, peering into the rooms that lined the hallways, the source of the flickering and the noise. I peered in as well, seeing huge screens displaying a quick succession of images, some benign, some terrifying. At the center of each room was a chair, and strapped to it, a human being. Richard dragged me away from each room as he progressed through the hallway. But one room I could not be dragged away from at all. One room, I _knew_.

"Annie!"

I grabbed at the door, trying to pry it open. "It's Annie! It's Annie, I know it is. Help me!"

Richard looked at me, again with that same expression of reluctantly following orders. Then, he pushed his shoulder hard against the door, trying to bang it open. I followed suit. After a few blows the door flew open, and I rushed inside, rushed to the body on the chair staring at the screen. "Annie!" I called out, grabbing her hand. She did not answer. On her eyes were a pair of neon lit glasses, keeping her gaze fixated on the screen. "Annie!" I called out again, removing the glasses from her face. Her eyes blinked sluggishly, her pupils unfocused. "Annie, can you hear me? Richard! Turn off the video!"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Ben?" It was Annie.

"Annie, I'm here. Are you okay?"

"Ben...you came and got me. Thank you." She smiled at me, weakly.

I shook my head, hooking my arm around her shoulders. "Annie, it's going to be okay, we're going to--" I heard noises in the hallway.

"Hurry, Ben, they're coming," said Richard, reaching for his gun. "I can only delay them for so long." He rushed out to the hallway and began to fire. Panicked, I grabbed Annie, pulling her sluggish body up from the chair, dragging her out of the room, frightened that one of the bullets would hit her on our way out. They didn't. We made it out safely into the jungle, the sound of gunfire far behind us. I placed Annie on the ground, watching as she smiled weakly at me.

"You saved me," she said.

"Yes. It's going to be all right." I sat next to her on the ground. "What did they do to you?"

"They made me fight...monsters...they made me fight...but you saved me." She was out of breath. She was weak.

"Annie, don't give up. Richard and I are going to take you back to the Hostiles' camp. You'll be okay."

"The Hostiles?"

"They're good people. Don't worry, Annie. Just rest."

She nodded, though her expression was uncertain, and closed her eyes. We remained in silence for several moments, no whispers, no gunfire to be heard. I looked up to the sky, thinking I should have felt happy, relieved that my plan had worked; but I felt was uncertain. I knew more now than I could have ever guessed possible, knew about things I did not even knew _existed. _Everything had changed: what I knew to be true, what I knew to be real. What would life be like now that my eyes had been opened? I sighed, listening to the rustling of the leaves. Only a moment later did I realize that it wasn't the wind disturbing the vegetation, but Richard.

"Is she okay?" he asked as he came level with us.

"She's sleeping," I replied.

Richard looked at her, as if to verify my claim. He didn't seem to believe me. He crouched next her body, placing two fingers on her neck. I stared at him, brows furrowed. Why did he have to do that? She was asleep. Wasn't she?

Richard was now looking at me, his fingers still on her neck. He shook his head. "She's not asleep."


End file.
